My Heart Stood Still (Sisters Of Mercy Flats 2)

by Lori Copeland

  “No, he was just kind enough to help me. And look what I’ve done to repay him.”

  “He’s strong; all he needs is a few days to mend. And from the looks of you, a good rest wouldn’t hurt you any either. Let’s get him into bed, and then you try to get some sleep. And while we’re at it, let’s get you out of that nun clothing. It ain’t fittin for you to pretend to be something you ain’t.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  When Anne-Marie tried to move Creed he stirred, weakly pushing her away. Awake now, he turned defensive. “I can get to the bed on my own.”

  The cats gathered, meowing as though they wanted a better look at their guest.

  “Leave him alone, girls. He needs his rest.”

  Between Eulalie and Anne-Marie, the two women pulled Creed off the table and eased his body the few steps to the small cot in the corner of the cabin. But no sooner had they gotten him settled than they heard a moan coming from the man on the floor.

  Quincy sat up, grasping his head with both hands. “What happened?”

  “You fainted,” Anne-Marie said.

  “Fainted?” Quincy scrambled to his feet. “No, ma’am, I didn’t faint. I must’ve tripped over one of those cats, or something.”

  “Yes, that must be what happened.” Anne-Marie and Eulalie exchanged amused looks.

  Quincy spotted Creed lying on the cot. “Is he going to make it?”

  “Eulalie thinks he’ll be good as new in a few days.”

  “That’s good news.” He reached up gingerly to probe a knot the size of a goose egg forming on the side of his head.

  “It wouldn’t hurt any of us to get some sleep,” Eulalie said.

  Quincy edged toward the front door. “Well, I’ll just be going out to the lean-to. If you need anything, I’ll be close by.”

  Eulalie met his eyes, understanding passing between them. “It’s not necessary for you to sleep out there. Plenty of room in here where it’s warm.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, but I’d be more comfortable sleeping in the lean-to.”

  “Suit yourself. Just wanted you to know you’re welcome.” Shuffling to the stove, Eulalie took the lid off a pot and drew in the smell of the steamy contents. “Better have a bite to eat before you go. Mornin’s a ways off.”

  “Thank you, ma’am, but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll be going now.” Giving Anne-Marie a cursory nod, he strode quickly out the door, latching it behind him.

  The occupants of the shanty settled down for the night. Eulalie provided a skirt and worn feed-sack blouse, and Anne-Marie gratefully shed the disguise before she made herself a pallet beside the bed. Eulalie moved to the fire and lowered herself into her rocker with a mug of homemade tea.

  Stretching out on the pallet, Anne-Marie closed her eyes and put her toes to the fire, absorbing the warmth. She was conscious of hunger pangs, but she was too tired to do anything about them.

  Fatigue swiftly claimed her, and she drifted off to the faint smell of wood smoke in the air.

  Five

  The sound of a rooster’s crow shattered the cabin’s sleepy silence. The boisterous Cock-a-doodle-do! was accompanied by a weak ray of sunlight struggling to penetrate the dirty windowpane.

  Rolling to her side, Anne-Marie came awake slowly. Creed was sleeping now, having tossed and turned the better part of the night.

  Eulalie was standing at the stove dishing out portions of cornmeal mush for the cats. She stirred the bubbling mixture with a heavy wooden ladle.

  “You must be hungrier than a polecat,” she called when Anne-Marie stirred.

  “I am. Whatever you’re cooking smells wonderful.”

  “Nothin’ fancy—just plain old mush, but it’ll keep starvation off your doorstep.”

  Getting up, Anne-Marie tried to step over and around several cats and the raccoon as she crossed the room. The animals were scattered around, their heads buried in various bowls of scraps.

  A tap sounded at the front door and Anne-Marie called out, “Come in, Quincy!”

  Quincy appeared in the doorway, his coat dusted with light snow. “Morning, ladies.”

  “Mornin’,” Anne-Marie and Eulalie called back.

  “Snow about over?” Anne-Marie asked.

  “Yes, ma’am, seems to be tapering off.” His dark eyes moved to the cot in the corner. “How’s he doing this morning?”

  “He’s quieter now.” Eulalie motioned for Quincy to have a seat at the table, now clean and set with bowls and cups. “Hope you like mush.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I do.” Quincy sat down, and shortly thereafter Anne-Marie set a steaming cup of chicory in front of him.

  “I hope you were warm enough in the lean-to.”

  “I slept just fine, ma’am.”

  Eulalie and Anne-Marie sat down and the three bowed their heads as Eulalie prayed. “Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Bless the poor and the sick and the hurting. Amen.”

  Anne-Marie picked up a knife and spread butter on her bread, hesitantly broaching the subject that worried her most. “What do you think we should do about those strongboxes, Quincy?” She wasn’t sure if she should call him by his given name, but at the moment the small liberty felt proper.

  Keeping his eyes on his plate, Quincy said quietly, “We have to keep them, ma’am.”

  “You don’t have to be so formal; you can call me Anne-Marie.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “You really think we should keep the strongboxes?” Anne-Marie took a bite of bread, chewing thoughtfully. It was a high risk. Those strongboxes belonged to Wells Fargo. The last thing she wanted or sought was more trouble. That gold wasn’t theirs and needed to be returned. “Wouldn’t that make us thieves, though we took the boxes by accident?”

  “I suppose it would, but I don’t see we have much choice but to keep them. I wouldn’t advise turning them over to anyone we didn’t know for certain. That would create too much risk of them falling into the wrong hands.”

  “How so?”

  Quincy looked up, his dark eyes respectful. “Doesn’t it seem coincidental to you that those two strongboxes were in that wagon?”

  “No. The boxes could be the railroad payroll being delivered to the bank.”

  “Could be, but I don’t figure so.”

  Anne-Marie sat up straighter, her interest piqued. “Are you suggesting something unlawful is going on?”

  He shrugged. “Someone might have been transferring those boxes to their wagon instead of delivering them. Lot of thievery going on in these parts. Guess most anything’s possible.”

  Anne-Marie looked at him, skepticism forming in her mind. “Exactly why are you and Creed traveling together?”

  The combination of an educated black man and Indian keeping company seemed suspect to her, unless there was an underlying motive, one the men had failed to mention.

  Accepting another hunk of bread from Eulalie, Quincy busied himself buttering it.

  “What were you and Creed doing when Creed rescued me?” she repeated.

  “I think Creed should explain that, ma’am, not me.”

  She studied him, trying to decide why he was so evasive. “Friends, maybe?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He glanced up, smiling. “We’re that all right. Met years ago and formed a tight friendship.”

  “Where?”

  “Where what?”

  “Where did you meet and form a tight friendship?”

  “Through our work.”

  “You work together?”

  “I didn’t say that we worked together—I said we met at our work.”

  “Which is?”

  “Can’t tell you.” He glanced at Eulalie. “Ma’am, could I have some of those strawberry preserves?”

  “You work together,” Anne-Marie pursued, “but you can’t say where?”

  “Miss Eulalie, ma’am.” He spooned thick preserves on his bread. “These are quite possibl
y the best looking preserves I’ve ever seen. You put these up yourself?”

  Eulalie smiled. “I shore do, and I got more where those come from. Before you leave remind me to give you a jar… ” The two went into great detail about jams and jellies.

  Anne-Marie’s gaze narrowed on him. He was clearly avoiding the subject of Creed and their friendship. But why? She butted in on the preserves conversation. “Is it possible that you know something about that particular gold that you’re not telling me?”

  Was that why he was choosing his answers so carefully?

  “Ma’am, I guess when it comes right down to it, I don’t know much of anything,” he conceded. “I just eat my preserves and thank the good Lord for giving me another day.”

  “Well.” Anne-Marie sighed, biting into her bread. It was apparent she wasn’t going to get anything more out of him than his overwhelming desire for more jam. “I suppose Creed will know what to do about the strongboxes once he’s awake.”

  Quincy kept his eyes on his plate. “Yes, ma’am, I expect he will.”

  She watched as he ate the meager fare with appreciation, convinced he was hiding something from her. Obviously he and Creed were in cahoots, but she wasn’t going to get anything out of Quincy. Not this morning. Turning to Eulalie, she said quietly, “We’ll have to stay a few days—long enough for Creed to get back on his feet.”

  “Stay as long as you like. Be happy to have the company.”

  Turning to Quincy, Anne-Marie tried to gauge his reaction to her suggestion. “Is that okay with you, Mr. Adams? You don’t have to be anywhere at any particular time?”

  Now she had him cornered. If he was up to something, he’d have to tell her or he wouldn’t be able to finish whatever he was up to on time.

  “Fine with me, ma’am.”

  Oh, he was smart, all right. If he and Creed were working together, she’d never hear it from John Quincy Adams.

  The morning turned to one of waiting. Snow cleared and a cold wind rattled the old dwelling. Eulalie waited for bread and pies to come out of the oven, while Anne-Marie and Quincy waited on Creed’s return to consciousness. Eulalie wondered aloud if she’d baked enough bread for everyone and had put enough cinnamon in her apple pie; Anne-Marie wondered if Creed was really going to be all right and why Quincy was deceiving her; and Quincy wondered what he and Creed were going to tell Anne-Marie to satisfy her curiosity when his friend finally woke up.

  It seemed the whole world waited on Creed Walker.

  Creed drifted between awareness and unconsciousness. In lucid moments he recognized the smell of cinnamon and baked apples, but that wasn’t what Anne-Marie and the old woman were forcing down his throat. When he tried to swallow the bitter concoction, he was reminded of the time he’d been sick with the white man’s fever and the medicine man had forced something equally vile through his parched lips.

  Occasionally he could hear Anne-Marie voice his concerns.

  “He’s so weak.”

  “He’s as strong as an ox,” a gravelly voice answered from somewhere above him. He felt a small, cool hand touch his face when the noxious brew was once again raised to his mouth.

  “Will he live?”

  Creed wanted to assure the voice that he would, but he couldn’t force the words from his throat.

  “He’ll make it,” Eulalie confirmed.

  Occasionally he could hear pounding in the background and could only surmise that Quincy was trying to repay the old woman for her charitable hospitality.

  Mercifully he dropped into unconsciousness, his last thoughts being that of a lovely young woman with emerald-colored eyes.

  By late afternoon Anne-Marie had grown weary of the wait. She decided the patient needed a good washing, if not for him, then out of respect for those around him. Armed with soap and hot water, the angels of mercy scrubbed, lathered, scoured, and powdered until they had the Indian, in Quincy’s stated opinion, smelling like a girl. He stood close by, trying to converse with a lifeless Creed. “I’d spare you this appalling exhibition of maternal clucking, but I am powerless to prevent it.”

  “Don’t be so smug, Mr. Adams.” Anne-Marie filled the hot water kettle and set it on the stove. “You’re next.”

  Quincy headed for the door but Anne-Marie blocked his efforts to flee. “You’re not going anywhere until you bathe. I’m sick of smelling you and your friend—and lay your clothes by the doorway. I want to scrub them too.”

  Not long after, the freshly bathed Quincy excused himself and escaped to the lean-to, wearing a pair of clean breeches and a shirt Eulalie had provided.

  Later, Eulalie settled down in the rocking chair and Anne-Marie decided to read a book of poems by the popular poet Walt Whitman. She loved poetry; she’d even written one or two poems herself—though they weren’t all that good.

  “Where did you get a Walt Whitman book?” she asked, thumbing through the yellowed pages of Leaves of Grass. She would never think that Eulalie had a literary side.

  “Can’t rightly recall.” Her host glanced at the book. “Don’t look familiar to me. You’re welcome to read it if you like.”

  A gust of wind rattled the old shanty as Anne-Marie lost herself in Whitman’s words. The sound of a strangled snort distracted her, and she glanced up to see Eulalie’s head starting to nod.

  Shaking her head, Anne-Marie returned to “Song of Myself” as the clock on the mantel methodically ticked off the long evening.

  Smoke. Creed opened his eyes when the smell filled his nostrils. Coughing, he struggled to sit up.

  Angry, red-hot tendrils licked a trail from floor to ceiling, devouring the dry timber. Heat suffocated him and he groped for the edge of the bed.

  Where was he?

  Rolling to the floor, he gritted his teeth when a white-hot pain shot up his leg. Through a thick blanket of haze he saw the old woman’s sleeping form slumped forward in her chair, the roaring flames, like a pack of wild animals coming closer.

  He threw his arm up to shield his face from the scorching heat while his eyes searched the room. The flames were spreading, leaping across the dry timber, destroying everything that stood in their way.

  “Quincy! Are you in here?” he called in a cracked voice. His lungs burned, and his eyes blurred when he rolled off the cot and tried to crawl across the room.

  “Over here.” Anne-Marie’s barely perceptible voice came to him above the sound of the roaring inferno.

  “Where are you?”

  “Over here, near the kitchen table.”

  “Can you crawl to me?”

  He heard her gasp when she slid off her pallet and began to crawl on hands and knees across the floor.

  “Where are you?” Creed insisted.

  “Where are you? I can’t find you!”

  Filled with panic, he searched the inferno. “Anne-Marie!”

  He was so weak he could barely move. He had to get to her…

  Quincy. Where was he?

  “Over here—take my hand!” He blindly groped, hoping to feel her flesh.

  Long moments passed before he felt a small hand latch firmly onto his. Relief filled him.

  “Where’s Quincy?” he yelled.

  “Outside—lean-to!”

  Struggling across the floor, he half dragged, half pulled Anne-Marie along behind him. Every muscle in his body felt like hot coals. Gritting his teeth, he silently cried out against the pain but he held tight to her hand.

  The fire raged out of control. Flaming arrows of destruction stuck him when rafters rained down on their heads.

  “Eulalie!” Anne-Marie cried out. She struggled to break away but he held tight. “Where’s Eulalie?”

  Clasping her hand, Creed felt his way across the plank floor. When he located the door, he realized he didn’t have the strength to reach the latch.

  Rolling to his side, he gritted his teeth and kicked the door with all of his might. The panel gave way with a splintering sound. Flames gained new life when fresh air sucked into t
he room.

  Grabbing Anne-Marie around the waist, he rolled out onto the porch and down the log steps onto the snow-packed ground.

  Drawing in deep breaths of fresh air, Anne-Marie staggered to her feet and scrambled away, nearly falling over half a dozen cats in the process when she sought refuge beneath a nearby oak.

  Collapsing, she remembered Creed and crawled back to help him to safety. As they fought for breath, she saw Quincy burst from the lean-to, leading the frightened team of horses.

  Moments later the roof of the cabin caved in, and the shanty was engulfed in a ball of fire.

  “Eu-Eulalie!” Anne-Marie buried her face in her hands and sobbed, her shoulders heaving. Eulalie had seen her through many a lonely time in life. The world wouldn’t be the same without the kindly woman who always made her feel like family.

  Bracing his hands on a snow pack, Creed bent forward as a spasm of coughing choked him. When he could speak, he crawled to his feet.

  Anne-Marie’s hand blocked him. “Where are you going? Creed!” she shouted when she noticed that he was already making his way back to the house. Relief surged when she spotted Quincy leaning against the horse rail, catching his breath.

  “What happened?” Quincy shouted when Creed limped toward him. The wild-eyed animals shied away from the fire, and the man struggled to hold them. “How can you be on your feet? You were near death two hours ago.”

  “I woke up and the cabin was in flames.” He fixed on Quincy. “Eulalie’s still in there. I’m going in after her.”

  “Not alone, you’re not.” Quincy fell into step behind him and the two men disappeared into the flames.

  Anne-Marie sat on the ground staring, praying, hands clasped tightly to her chest when Quincy returned carrying a limp Eulalie. Creed leaned on his shoulder, coughing. Laying the woman at the base of a tree, Quincy gently leaned and blew breath back into her body. After several moments, Eulalie stirred, coughing.

  “Oh thank You, God.” The grateful sob slipped from Anne-Marie softly. “She’s alive.”

  Creed carefully made his way to where she sat. Reaching out, she helped him to the ground. “You risked your life to save her,” she whispered.